$40 Million Bond Sale Approved To Help Pay For Hospital Expansion * The Money Will Also Be Used For Improvements At 2 Other Valley Hospitals.

January 28, 1999|by DAN HARTZELL, The Morning Call

Lehigh County commissioners approved a $40 million bond sale by Lehigh Valley Health Network Wednesday to help finance the hospital company's Jaindl Family Pavilion and other capital improvements.

The bonds will be sold through the county's General Purpose Authority, allowing the nonprofit hospital corporation to use tax-exempt notes, holding down the interest rate. The county sanctions that the work derived from such bond sales will benefit the community's general health, safety and welfare.

The Jaindl Wing at Lehigh Valley Hospital's Salisbury Township campus on Cedar Crest Boulevard is under construction. The county approved a $40 million bond issue for the building, then called the East Wing, in July 1997.

Hospital Chief Financial Officer Vaughn C. Gower said Wednesday that the new issue will raise additional money for that project, which has grown in scope, and for improvements at Lehigh Valley Hospital, Allentown, and at Muhlenberg Hospital Center in Bethlehem -- all Health Network affiliates.

In December, farmer and land developer Fred J. Jaindl of North Whitehall Township pledged $6 million for the $56 million, 230,000-square-foot East Wing building over the next five years. In response, the hospital renamed the five-story wing scheduled to open next January.

Gower said about $5 million of the new bond revenue would be used for the complete renovation of the third floor of the Pool Pavilion at LVH Salisbury into a state-of-the-art cardiology unit. The floor currently houses some cardiac care functions, a burn unit and other uses.

There also will be renovations to operating rooms and a nursing unit there, he said.

At the Allentown complex at 17th and Chew streets, upgrades will be made to medical and surgical clinics, Gower said.

And at Muhlenberg, parking improvements, new utility services and a utility building and upgrades to patient rooms are planned.

The renovations, now in the planning stages, will take several years to complete, Gower said.

Commissioners approved the bond sale without dissent, with one absentee.

The board also approved a host of professional services contracts, including one for Miller, Anderson and Sherrerd for investment advice for the county's $250 million pension fund, after several delays over contract changes.

The bill was last deferred at the Jan. 13 meeting after Commissioner Grayson E. McNair complained that the latest changes were submitted by the legal bureau just a short time before that meeting began.

A contract for a third and final additional pension investment adviser, Emerald Advisors Inc., was deferred again on Wednesday, however. The county is increasing the number of managers of the massive fund from three to six to better diversify.

Commissioners also honored the Southern Lehigh High School field hockey team, which won the 1998 Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association's Class 2A state championship with a 28-0-1 record. Squad members and Coach Pat Dierking and her assistants accepted their awards at the Government Center in Allentown.